[Forensic neuropsychology: principal issues and applications]

The term Forensic Neuropsychology refers to the application of the knowledge of the field of Neuropsychology to the legal matters. The field of Clinical Neuropsychology has experienced a great development, thanks to the investigations and publications that have been made both in the basic and applied fields. Nevertheless, only in the last years, clinical neuropsychologists have participated actively in the courts.

The testimony as experts of neuropsychologists is more and more common. They inform to the judge on the behavioral, emotional and cognitive sequels following lesions to the human brain, as well as the importance of psychosocial variables in modulating brain function and dysfunction. The relationship between Neuropsychology and Law has been influenced by the confluence of a series of related factors that have contributed to the professionalization of this discipline. Among these, we can emphasize the study of brain-behavior relationships by means of quantitative methods, the interpretative strategies to infer the presence, location and type of neuropathology; the decision making on legal subjects like the determination of disability; the description of the characteristic cognitive-behavioral profiles of neurological disorders; the implication of the psychosocial variables and the decision on the most appropriate interventions. Some of the most important objectives of this new discipline are: the identification of the sequels of mild traumatic brain injury as the posconmocional syndrome , the determination of premorbid intellectual functioning and the valoration of cognitive loss. There is no doubt that in the next years this field of application of Clinical Neuropsychology is going to experience an important growth in our country, thanks partly, to the norms that are followed to establish the degree of disability and the compensations of the insurance agencies, that consider these neuropsychological sequelae.